Higher education (HE) researchers, like their colleagues across the humanities and social sciences, are increasingly tuning in to the political possibilities offered by working with emotion and affect. Reading across this work, it would seem that certain practices, and their associated affects, have achieved an aura of legitimacy, and political recognisability, while others tend to be regarded with suspicion. This article seeks to interrogate the current conceptual framing of affective agency within HE research, and to advance possibilities for viewing it otherwise. It draws upon queer theoretical work, taking Jagose's consideration of complex agency as a platform for an alternative framing. By examining an empirical case of the anxious practices of a doctoral writer, this article illuminates some cracks in assumptions made about what affective agency looks and feels like. As well as opening up discussion about the complexity of affective politics, this article illustrates the benefit of a queer methodology beyond the realms of sex, sexuality and gender in HE research.